Extensive Listening trial diary

Two years into teaching EAP,  I had always been teaching on Reading and Writing courses. The curriculum contains an Extensive Reading (ER) thread that contributes towards the students' final Reading score. I knew little about ER before teaching EAP and am became a big fan of this ER component. While not perfect and having a …

Elementary Dogme-influenced class: reflecting on course reflections

Ploughing through old blog post drafts to see what is worth working on, and came across this old (May 2016) but worth re-visiting reflection from back when I was teaching general English in the evening at a language school. Good times. It's interesting to see which of the things touched on in this reflection remain …

Teaching adjective clauses

Looking back through old notes I found a lesson plan that used a slightly adapted version of the rap / song / poem in this Fluency MC video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnJvKH8qO4E This was a memorable lesson. It required bravery from the teacher, unless that is you are used to rapping in front of your students, and was …

Gallery writing mingle?

Gallery mingles (where you have a bunch of questions /  pictures / texts stuck around the classroom and ask students to walk around and talk about them) are a classic. Good for setting topic, peer review, and post-reading / listening discussion, I have always done them as a speaking activity. Why not do the same …

Vocabulary that’s hard to pronounce

This is a low-prep, high-tech vocabulary revision activity that focuses on pronunciation. Procedure: Draw a big square on the board, with the title: 'Vocabulary we have studied that is hard to pronounce'. Ask students to look back through their vocabulary notebooks (if they have one) or their coursebooks and find vocabulary they have studied that …

Monday morning warmer: My weekend in a picture

Mondays are tough for everyone. The last thing you want to see is students arrive in drips and drabs, sit down as far away from each other as seems possible, and either a) stare into space; b) stare at their phones; c) apathetically flick through last weeks lesson notes; d) immediately ask to go to …

Extensive / Intensive listening material for students – probably the best collection of listening links for students

via ELT Listening Material

Some CamTESOL 2018 takeaways

Are we really teaching reading? 3 areas to integrate into reading lessons: Extensive Reading Reading Fluency Development Speed Reading Repeat Reading Intensive Reading Questions to think about: What type of reading do learners experience in class? What is missing from my reading lessons? How has today's lesson helped learners tomorrow? Do students get a sense …

Noticing the difference: dialogue reformulation and peer teaching

At the end of the previous lesson, in pairs students wrote a dialogue trying to incorporate some language from a listening text. The phrases in question were: Oh you know, same old same old How do you mean? By the way,   In terms of what exactly?  After all I was wondering if you could… …

L2-L1-L2 board race translations

An alternative board race with translation. Works in monolingual classes. Not essential that the teacher speaks students' language. Good for checking meaning and vocabulary review. Procedure: Put students into teams and play a board race to write a list of recently studied language: 2. Ask students to then write the translation next to each item: …